


Plucked

by gala_apples



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Feathers & Featherplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later there will be a scandal, and recriminations, and promises to get a wife and stop being a shame. Right now there's Bruce and a summer spent at a quill shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plucked

Bruce is the only person Tony knows with a summer job. 

Mr Potts doesn’t believe that women should work, and until Pepper is married or leaves the family home, his word goes. It’s a frustrating shame, Tony thinks. Pepper’s brilliant at managing, whether it’s people, items, or time. She should be getting paid to control things. When Tony’s in control of the Stark funds, he’s going to hire her and let her dictate whatever she wants to. His life will undoubtedly be better for it.

The Hogans are training Happy to be everything Tony needs him to be. The day Tony turns eighteen he’ll have Happy at his beck and call, no choice in the matter for either of them. For now Happy doesn’t work, just learns how to become more useful. Tony plans to allocate a lot of his resources to creating things that reduce the amount of tasks Happy has. If Happy had steam powered boots, for example, it would take hom less time to cover the vast grounds trying to find Tony. Or if he made a clockwork automaton capable of understanding directions, Happy wouldn’t have to drive him places.

Rhodey can’t afford to get a job. He wants to be in the Royal Army, but the king only accepts those that are pure of motive. Showing an obvious concern for money will disqualify him. Tony’s never really gotten along with that sort of moral authority, but he refrains from mocking Rhodey’s dream. Usually. Sometimes a quip comes into his brain at just the right time, and it’s hardly fair to expect him to keep silent.

Tony, of course, doesn’t work. Or, at least, he doesn’t work for anyone except himself. Obadiah has made it very clear that his job is to live the Stark name. He needs to invent new technology, do things with steam and brass nobody has ever seen before. More than that, Tony needs to keep interest up. If he’s _not_ going to be brilliant, he needs to be someone the public can look at as others work behind the scenes to be brilliant for him.

Tony plans on being brilliant. 

He’s got no choice, really. There was a brief lull of demand on him after his parents deaths. No one expected Tony to do anything except decimate the large stores of ethanol Howard had. Which Tony did. Precious little went into the machinery in the early days. But somewhere in that sloppy mess of time he found Bruce, and was drunkenly confident enough to do something about it. Once he dried up a little they had a brave, intelligent conversation and came to the same conclusion: they can have fun together, before they both eventually have to do the responsible thing and get married in order to have progeny. It won’t hurt them to leave each other and there will be no ugly break up, because they both know the score. Tony’s not naive, he knows he won’t escape a scandal. His saving grace will be being brilliant. Obadiah and the rest of the company will be much easier to placate if he can offer a concrete end to the shame, and if he’s making them a lot of money.

Tony is planning on spending all his summer in the village, and most of that time in Writtenrod’s Quill Shop. There’s no reason to be inside the house when he can sit outside Olivetti’s on the benches underneath the flowered windows, drinking his chilled tea and getting a tan. There’s no reason to interrupt Jarvis, who cares a little but is very busy, or the people working for the family who wouldn’t give him a second glance if he wasn’t Tony Stark, when he can discuss the book he’s reading with Bruce. Jarvis might spare a minute to listen to his opinion and tell him he’s probably right, but least half the time Bruce has already read it.

Rhodey, Happy and Pepper come see him once a day, whenever they can get away. It’s easy to tell when they’ve arrived, most customers don’t sound like a herd of teenage feet stomping inside. They bring a few bottled juices with them whenever they come in. Every flavour gets represented except strawberry, because Pepper is allergic. Since they share bottles indiscriminately -just pick the nearest one up and take a sip, even if it’s near because it’s in someone’s hand- it’s much safer to just not buy that kind. It took Bruce a few days to get used to the idea, but now he can pluck a bottle from one of their hands without hesitation.

Eventually they leave, Happy and Pepper to placate their parents, Rhodey to stand at the wired fence and watch the Royal Army. Tony never leaves with them. He can't be invited back to the Potts’, Pepper’s father doesn’t like his attitude. Tony _encourages Pepper’s behaviour_ and that’s not acceptable. If he’s invited to Happy’s it gets awkward nearly the instant he walks in. The Hogans see him as a boss, and every time Happy replies to something Tony says they remind him to call him sir. And it's pretty obvious Rhodey isn't all that comfortable with Tony dating a man, even if it'll only be temporary. Tony’s sure the first time they’re alone together for more than five minutes that argument is going to come up, and Tony wants to avoid that for as long as he can.

Tony doesn’t go with his friends, and he doesn’t leave for his own home. He always stays until Bruce is done his shift, at different points staying out of the way, and roping customers into their long discussions. Tony likes it best when Bruce closes. It’s not that he won’t show up if Bruce is opening, he just won’t show up at opening. There are things you do for boyfriends and things you don’t, and waking up at seven thirty in the morning to be at Writtenrod’s at eight is not a thing you do.

He likes the closing shift primarily because after all the customers leave and the shop’s door is locked, they can fuck. They don’t get a lot of opportunities for sex, but after close is one of them. Bruce always blackouts the windows first. With each shutter he locks the anticipation rises a notch. It only takes Bruce five minutes to get the room sealed, but to Tony it seems like a lifetime. He’s not great with patience.

“Are you done yet?” he asks impatiently. 

Tony knows Bruce isn’t. He still has to do a count to make sure inventory matches against the list of things the store has sold today, and another count to make sure the correct amount of money is in the til. He has to blow out the lanterns so the entire shop doesn’t go up in flames. And then there’s the task of starting the cleaning automaton. It’s basically useless, the gears run at half speed after five minutes. If Bruce was going to be working here for more than the next few months, Tony would build him a better one. Unfortunately he’s still underage, which means he has to request supplies from Obadiah and explain his expenses. Six weeks of extra work isn’t a good enough reason to broach the subject of ‘my boyfriend needs a better cleaning automaton’. 

“You know I’m not.”

“You know I’m the more fun option.” He’s pushing, he knows he is. And he’s not going to stop. It’s so good when Bruce gets frustrated and pushes back. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does-

Bruce shoves Tony against the wall to the left of the window. It’s more of a giant storage system; an entire wall of drawers, each holding a different kind of feather. The world has over ten thousand different species of bird, many only reachable by zeppelin. Writtenrod’s more expensive, rare species are housed in the glass cases behind the counter, the drawers for American birds. There are a dozen handles against his back, and if Bruce decides all he wants to do is rut, Tony is going to be pressed into them hard enough to bruise. He doesn’t care. Tony gets bruises in a myriad of ways; when working with machinery one has to balance instinct with self preservation. Bruises with sex as the cause are the best possible.

Bruce sinks to his knees. For a moment he just looks up at Tony, who has to resist the urge to run his fingers lightly through Bruce’s hair. Then the softness is broken as Bruce pulls his trousers down. When Bruce’s lips first wrap around his cock Tony raises his arm and reaches for something to hold onto. Even a crack would be good. Tony can’t do this without clinging to something, and Bruce refuses to blow him if he’s tugging on his hair. Unfortunately he’s against a storage wall, and the handle he grabs opens. More than opens, it pulls out entirely. It’s full of flamingo feathers which go scattering everywhere. Even with the shutters closed there’s a slight breeze. The gust is product of poor window construction, just another thing Tony only cares about because it affects Bruce. 

In a second of careless movement Tony has just added ten minutes of clean up onto Bruce’s close. He feels like an asshole. “Sorry.” 

On his knees, Bruce looks surprisingly relaxed. He plucks a coral coloured feather off his shoulder, but doesn’t drop it to the floor with the rest. “Don’t be. You’re cleaning it up, not me. Might as well use them first though.”

Tony doesn’t have the chance to question Bruce about what he means. One second they’re looking at each other, the next Bruce is once again intent on his dick, feather in his hand flitting across his shaft. Tony jerks forward and nearly takes Bruce’s eye out. He does drop the long skinny drawer that was still in his left hand. It thuds loudly and Tony is vaguely sure it hit at the precise wrong angle and the knob handle cracked off, but it’s the least of his concerns because the feather is making swift circles on the base of his cock. He lasts a second before he jerks again. That’s when Bruce pauses.

“What do you think? Good?”

“Well, don’t fucking stop.” Tony snaps. He’s not sure he actually likes it. It’s a weird sensation, a cross between ticklish and erotic that he’s never experienced before. He’s not sure it will actually make him come. But Bruce stopping is certainly not the answer. 

“I’ll keep going if you hold still.”

“That’s hardly fair,” he answers, teeth gritting at _fair_ when Bruce runs the feather down his length. His genitals are being tickled. The most sensitive part of his body is being tickled, and he’s supposed to hold still?

“I’ll help.” And with that Bruce’s hand is on his abdomen. Tony always forgets how big Bruce’s hands are until he’s pinning him down and he realises he won’t be getting away. Not that he wants to.

Closing his eyes doesn’t help. Tony’s a visual-conceptual learner, he likes to see what’s going on in order to understand it. With his eyes closed it’s too much. He has to keep grounding himself with the technical aspects, _Bruce is touching me with the barb_ and _that’s the rachis running over my slit_ , to keep in control.

Opening his eyes doesn’t help. It’s not just the colour against his flushed cock, although fuck knows that looks obscene. It’s Bruce’s fingers splayed, curled backwards against the pressure of Tony arching forward. It’s the way the barbs are starting to split and get squished together as the feather gets used in a way it’s not meant to. 

It’s the expression on Bruce’s face, how he knows it’s too much for Tony and isn’t even considering stopping, because he doesn’t feel like it and this isn’t Tony’s choice. Tony wants to see that look every day until the day they’re forced to break it off for their own good. Feathers as a sex aid are the least of the things Tony would face for that expression.


End file.
